Hey Big Spenders, You Auto know and Why’d You Leggo of Your Eggo?

Score one for the consumers…

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People have been shopping lately – a lot – as evidenced by a big jump in consumer spending for March. In fact it was the most spent money in five years. People bought cars, furniture and lots of other merchandise. Household purchases account for 70% of the economy and consumers helped to stimulate the economy with a .9% increase. Go consumers! That’s especially good news since the release of that dismal report showing the economy only grew by a teeny tiny .1%. But alas, jobless claims were up for the third straight week when 344,000 filed people filed unemployment claims. That number was up by 14,000.

Vroom vroom vroom…

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The auto industry has been bombarding Wall Street with its earnings today. Ford missed the mark with sales that were down by .8%. Analysts predicted it would have a 3.1% gain. Chrysler was up 14% over the same period last year but missed their estimates by 2%. However, they probably weren’t terribly distraught since its Jeep brand had its best monthly sales ever. Ever. But the biggest head scratcher was scandal-wracked GM. It was up 7% despite the fact that its recent recall debacle just about destroyed its quarterly profits. According to CEO Mary Barra, the recall debacle had “no meaningful impact on sales.” Coincidentally, GM is helping to put together “the first shipping container homestead.” It’s exactly what it sounds like. The project will be made primarily from scraps from one of its plants. One company’s scraps is another man’s shipping container homestead.

Snap crackle drop…

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Apparently you don’t gotta have your Pops. Kellogg’s, the maker of such iconic products as Eggo Waffles, Pop Tarts and Apple Jacks (my personal favorite) is watching its revenue crumble this quarter by 3%. It pulled in $3.74 billion when Wall Street was hoping it would pull in $3.81 billion. Increased competition, particularly from allegedly healthier alternatives (think Greek yogurt and breakfast sandwiches) has caused first quarter revenues to go soggy. Then there’s that whole McDonalds/Taco Bell breakfast war where the two fast-food chains want you to forego breakfast at home entirely. But Kellogg refuses to refuses to go down without a food fight and is rolling out…are your ready for this? A drinkable cereal. BOOM! Then it plans to further tackle those pesky healthy obstacles showcasing the finer nutritional points of a bowl of cereal swimming in milk. However, I suspect they wont be using Fruit Loops for that campaign.